Some think that sentience could emerge from any sufficiently complicated system. By the way, you're reading this on a massively-crosslinked network built from millions of routers, allowing any of a billion individual units to access, modify and reply to the others. Interested?

"We discovered that only about half of your digital footprint is
related to your individual actions—taking pictures, sending e-mails, or
making digital voice calls. The other half is what we call the 'digital
shadow'—information about you—names in financial records, names on
mailing lists, web surfing histories or images taken of you by security
cameras in airports or urban centers. For the first time your digital
shadow is larger than the digital information you actively create about
yourself."

We've listened to lots of great discussions at conferences and universities. This timeless, 1968 discussion between Pulitzer Prize winner, Norman Mailer and Marshall McLuhan, which we discovered last month, is one of the all-time greats. What triggered the idea to post this was the publication of Mailer's new novel The Castle in the Forest about Adolph Hitler's youth (see the Charlie Rose Interview with Mailer about the book).

It’s the most famous chord in rock 'n' roll, an instantly recognizable twang rolling through the open strings on George Harrison’s 12-string Rickenbacker. It evokes a Pavlovian response from music fans as they sing along to the refrain that follows:

"It’s been a hard day’s night And I’ve been working like a dog"

The opening chord to "A Hard Day’s Night" is also famous because, for 40 years, no one quite knew exactly what chord Harrison was playing.

There were theories aplenty and musicians, scholars and amateur guitar players all gave it a try, but it took a Dalhousie mathematician to figure out the exact formula.

Japanese scientists journeyed to Antarctica to recover evidence of alterations to Earth's atmosphere caused in medieval times by supernovae recorded by scholars - including obscure Irish monasteries where monks later interpreted them signs of the Antichrist . No, this isn't the plot of the next Dan Brown novel (or a Dan Brow fanfiction written by an X-Files addict): this is real science.